8 speed Campy Rear Mech Solutions

[JoeH]

I use 8 speed Campag, and have a couple of bikes and three sets of campy wheels, which i use for everything - commuting and social rides.

I'm quite a 8 speed Campag fan, partly the strength of 8 speed mixed with modernity of ergos. Plus I like the action of the chorus/record carbon bb ergo's especially.

I find ergo levers need g springs replacing every so often - not a problem.
Chains are easy to get.
Rear cassettes are easy to get hold of, but not as cheap as shimano.
Front deraileurs and chainsets are not so speed specific so again not a problem to get them.

BUT

Rear derailleurs are doing my nut in. You can't buy them new, and what NOS stock there is is extornationatly price. and I've bought some second hand off ebay and find they are bent, just don't cut the mustard. The fact the rear mechs hang low out the back means the liable to damage and wear so would be keen to buy a new one.

So what is the solution?

Is there new Campag mech that would work
or Shimano
or Sram
or anyone?

Sheldon say's Campagnolo made a very slight change in indexing in 2001. Supposedly, you need to use 2001 or later shifters with 2001 or later rear derailers, but the difference is so small that it doesn't matter in practice

So could i use a modern/current campy rear mech?

 

[hamster]

The CTC Shimergo pages say no, however you could try alternative clamping positions like the Hubbub modification to alter the leverage a little.

Sheldon is US-based and they tend not to ride in the muck that we do in the UK. Probably you could get away with it with clean new cables etc. but the shifting would always be off and probably more tetchy. According to the CTC page Campag themselves say it works though. Hmm.
http://www.ctc.org.uk/cyclists-library/ ... s/shimergo

 

[hamster]

Joe, one other thought springs to mind: try a JTek Shiftmate, I believe that there is one available which converts between the two Campag flavours.

 

[foz]

you can't use a modern campag mech as the shift ratio changed in 2001, but a pre-2001 9 speed rear mech should work ok with your 8 speed ergos and cassette.

from the CTC shimergo page:
"Unlike Shimano, Campag's 9-speed mechs do not happily accept 8-speed chain, however their 9-speed chain runs okay on 8-speed sprockets, so best use that if you have to fit a new mech. And although in theory, this mech will overshift by 0.22mm per click in an old 8-speed system, Campag's website implies that it's near enough okay"

 

[JoeH]

Re:

Thanks for the reply's, think retrobike is a great forum, so glad I posted here!

I read somewhere else, modern campy rear mechs can't take 8 speed width chain, is this true?

Also I can't make head nor tail of this Jtek pulley business, is there a table somewhere that says which one to use for which gear combo one has?
Thanks
Joe

 

[cce]

Description of the various shiftmates here

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/shiftmate.asp

 

[JoeH]

Re:

Thanks for the shiftmate links.

So i asked various people at JTek, about running a Shimano deraileur in amongst a complete 8 speed campy set up. (desirable for me as Shimano rear mech is cheap, and I have loads of everything else in campy)
You can't buy a shiftmate for that...after 3 emails.

We then got into fisticuffs about how shimano has different pull ratios for rear derailuers, I stated they are the same bar 11 speed. their reply was as follows.

'8, 9 & 10speed derailleurs do not have the same pull ratio, 10 speed is now different hence you can no longer mix Shimano Road & MTB in 10speed like you were able to do in 9 speed, the only way that you can now do that is if you use a 9speed MTB rear derailleur if you require a wide range on your cassette & you are using 10spd road shifters'

Any comments?
I'm a bit lost...

 

[secret_squirrel]

Is it worth trying with a Sachs new success mech? They were designed for both 8 speed Shimano and 8 speed Sachs which have fractionally different pull ratio's, so you might get different results than pure shimano, especially when coupled with a different cable clamping. They show up quite frequently on Ebay, look nice, and no body buys them. Downside is the initial asking prices are usually stupidly high.

 

[Woz]

Interesting one. There is a very good reference here:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bicycles/M ... Dimensions

It looks like a modern Shimano 10 speed MTB rear mech may work as the pull ratio is only
0.1 mm off the Campag 8 speed. Not sure you could get a moden 10 MTB rear mech with
a short cage though....

EDIT: SCRAP THAT IDEA! After a re-read of what I wrote it won't work...while the
cable pull length from a Shimano 10 speed shifter is very similar to Campag 8 speed shifter,
how the rear mech translates that to one sprocket shift will be totally different.

 

[hamster]

Re: Re:

Thanks for the shiftmate links.

So i asked various people at JTek, about running a Shimano deraileur in amongst a complete 8 speed campy set up. (desirable for me as Shimano rear mech is cheap, and I have loads of everything else in campy)
You can't buy a shiftmate for that...after 3 emails.

We then got into fisticuffs about how shimano has different pull ratios for rear derailuers, I stated they are the same bar 11 speed. their reply was as follows.

'8, 9 & 10speed derailleurs do not have the same pull ratio, 10 speed is now different hence you can no longer mix Shimano Road & MTB in 10speed like you were able to do in 9 speed, the only way that you can now do that is if you use a 9speed MTB rear derailleur if you require a wide range on your cassette & you are using 10spd road shifters'

Any comments?
I'm a bit lost...

They are right. Both systems were the same at the rear for 7/8/9 speed. Road 10 is the same as 7/8/9. MTB 10 and Road 11 speed use more cable pull per click. This is due to the cable pull per click becoming very small, making it very susceptible to friction in the system from dirt etc.

Campag and SRAM systems with their longer cable pull per click have always been easier to set up and tend to stay in adjustment longer. My Campag 9 speed 1994 setup rarely needs adjustment and tolerates dirty cabling.